Have you been as successful as you could have been?

[iwanttobeonleave]

If not, why do you think that was? What held you back in your career?

Or looking at it the other way, what made or helped you be as successful as you are?

I've been mulling over why I don't run a FTSE100 company (), and why some people make it and others don't.....

I partied hard through University so didn’t get amazing grades and wasn’t able to pursue my degree straight into the profession, however since then I’ve been catching up and have a unique & fulfilling career path that I really enjoy so far, and unique skills due to having to do some quite creative things to get started. I am still behind my peers in terms of salary but I believe that the potential is there in the future.

The book “affluenza” helped me to come to terms with initial disappointment in myself.

Ultimately we are all as successful as we could have been given our abilities and circumstances. Sure if we were different people living different lives we maybe able to achieve more, but we are not. We are who we are, living the lives we have, with our own circumstances.

Being a different person, living a different life,,,healthier, better educated, smarter, more motivated, better parents, made different choices, sure we could maybe achieve more. But we didn’t, because we are who we are.

I've been very successful based on my own criteria. I had a fantastic, hard, demanding, exciting job in my 20s. In Asia, in another language. I have such big memories from those 8 yrs and it really shaped me. Then everything changed when I moved back to the UK and I did a very different job but it facilitated me really well as i got married and had 4 kids in 5 years while doing it. Without really planning it, that job has put me in a new direction that opened the door for my third big job move a year ago. I'm back to learning something completely difficult but I'm earning very well, got promoted 6 months in and have a very solid future ahead of me now in this great industry. My kids are getting easier and I'm happy and challenged. So I consider myself to be very successful because I love my work, have had amazing experiences along the way and now have 20 yrs ahead of me in a very exciting industry with loads of opportunity AND my family is at a much easier, more stable stage.

More so than I expected to be when I was 20, in my case.

I ended up by accident in a first career that took me into a higher earning bracket than I'd imagined when I was young (I had a sheltered upbringing and emotionally absent parents, not an easy start in life although not the worst either.)

Later on, I didn't have kids, which was my and my husband's choice. But obviously, on the practical side, this has freed us both up to take risks and chances with work that we wouldn't otherwise have taken if we'd had kids to feed and clothe.

I have a kind of career split now i.e. I work in two very different professions and I find my work life very fulfilling most of the time.

No, but I haven't given up on my ambitions quite yet!

I turned 40 a couple of months ago, and am currently between careers. I'm just not entirely sure what I want the next one to be.

Reading articles about late bloomers is very reassuring.

@maddy68

How do you measure success? Earnings? Status? Happiness?

Earnings are low. Status lower. Happiness as high as it can be.

Wouldn't trade that for 100k a year.

Everyone will define success differently though.

I got good qualifications, worked in my dream industry for a few years before settling in a related but less competitive one.

My 'success' came 25 years later IMO - the year we had an unexpected windfall
which meant we could off our mortgage, plus my DH's business took off, which meant I could give up work.

For me success is the ability to wake up each morning and look forward to the day ahead . I really enjoy my work, my home life is happy most of the time, my health is a bit hit and miss and my bank balance is enough to take care of anything unexpected, so for me that's success.

I was never academic so I guess there was only so far I could go career wise. My grades were average at best across the board. I scraped through my GCSE's, was unable to go onto A Levels and did a BTEC.

To gain entry into most professional and high end jobs, you need to be an A/A* student and excel in Maths/Chemistry/Science etc. My brain was and is not wired that way.

I am in a second tier management role. Some of my colleagues are 10-15 years younger and senior managers. They have a level of expertise, grit and confidence that I simply do not have.

My start in life possibly did not help matters: poverty, low achieving school, bullying, undiagnosed depression as a teen, low self esteem.

I am coming to terms with the fact that we cannot all be CEOs or entrepreneurs. I try to spend limited time on LinkedIn as it can make me feel inadequate.

I stayed in the same job/organisation for 15 years. Used to suffer terribly with MH issues. Always has a huge passion for the field I'm in though but just assumed I'd never get very far.

2018... separated from my husband. Handed in my notice with no job to go to and freelanced for a year. Got my MSc, got an assistant manager role (huge moment for me when offered that). Now beginning of 2022 I start in a new organisation on Monday as the manager.

I honestly think sometimes we can talk ourselves out of thinking we can be successful. Especially when MH lays a part. But I honestly believe that self-belief can change everything.

I think I’m the opposite- more successful career-wise than I should have been. My success was 90% fluke/luck.

I'm too lazy and don't really have a passion - at least not one I've found yet.

I just like to plod along with my family

Exactly the same. I've always done enough to get by fairly comfortably. I'd love the salary of a CEO but I don't want the responsibility or the hours that go with it. I'm not super successful, but I feel I've done enough and have a fair work/life balance and that makes me happy.

I sometimes wonder about this.
I had an excellent, well-paid career and was highly respected in my industry until my early 30s. Then I got married and had kids.

What held me back?

• traumatic births and probably undiagnosed PND
• going back to work before fully recovered, mentally or physically
• being made redundant when pregnant with DS2
• my mum dying of cancer just after birth of DS2
• a DH who felt he 'did his bit' but never really shared the mental load
• needing to take care of my Dad when he was widowed and subsequently developed Parkinsons
• Stress of DS1 having two major operations as a child
• DS2 having some SN which made school difficult for him
• being made redundant again when I requested a period of flexible working to cope with everything

So basically I was just spread too thin and overwhelmed with responsibility for everyone and everything. To be honest I'm probably quite bitter about it and feel that if I could just have had some work flexibility and extra support during a critical period I'd have been able to get through it and continue working at a high level afterwards.

I don't think I have , for me I think it's a combination of factors, very working class so left school at 16 no expectation of higher education, my own confidence and low self esteem, being a woman, perhaps even being short! Having children and taking on most parental responsibility, also maybe not being good at " sucking up" to people!
Looks like a list of excuses! I do know I left school with really good gcses but stopped my education at 16, people who achieved less at gcse level but continued education have done much better than me, I wasn't really given career advice, expectation was getting a job not a career , and then having a job,family, financial commitments makes returning to education harder. Also knowledge, I've
only just heard of access courses!!
I think its not just working hard or being clever, although clearly that helps but sitting quietly working hard doesn't really get you noticed imo, so its more than that, contacts,opportunities, personal "presence "

@Whadda I think this is really the crux of it. As humans we too easily pay ourselves on the back for success and blame ourselves for our failures - in both cases it really is luck, and the most gracious in our society accept the huge part luck has to play in their success and therefore don’t feel superior to those who haven’t had the same success.

There but for the grace of god go I.

I could have 'done better' had I moved my career to the city instead of staying fairly close to home.

I definitely put my successes down to;

-Determination for a better life
-Meeting some good mentors
-Being in a profession where hard work is repaid well
-Shed loads of grit and resilience...and some..
-Willingness to get academically very well qualified under my own steam
-a great deal of effort

The things that have affected progress were;

-Having a child very young and being a single parent
-being a woman with no "wife/husband at home to support me" ( here's where I think men don't know how lucky they are when they have a SAHM as a wife enabling their career!)
-pretty bad MH
-not being a great communicator

• having three children to raise

-not wanting to live in London

*pat ourselves on the back

On paper, yes I think so. But I haven't achieved what I would like to have achieved. I think the biggest thing holding me back is (as yet undiagnosed) adhd.

Ye-es with the caveat I like my bed in the morning so a 6am start commuting to London would never have worked for me - if I'd done that for 10 years I would probably be more senior now. But I can't think of anything worse!

I am 54 this year, we have 2 companies and DH is also VAT registered self employed.

I was a co board member (mgt) at 26
Learnt that I wanted to make a difference not a fortune
Worked in Vol sector (paid) to just below board level dep'ing for country level directors and so on with Strategy and Planning, made redundant 2 and appealed and got other jobs 3rd time they succeeded and I left - my daughter was 3. I decided I wanted to be around to pick her up, go to school events and do things to really make a difference.
We have a good living from our companies, I lost 3 parents (one MIL) in last 2 yrs 2 of them I had significant careing responsibilities, did 2 of the estates - I was able to be there for daughter, parents and siblings
Could I have had a bigger "career" oh definitely - still could really.

I was mentioned in the Birthday Honours list this yr and collected my medal not so long ago - for making a real difference.

Ask me what I am proud of...

It aint the jobs

Because I'm happiest when I don't work too many hours and when I have loads of holidays and adventures. My definition of success doesn't involve working all the time. I'm here to have a good time not climb to the top of a greasy pole.

Yes, with some caveats. In my first career I did very well and reached a senior position at what was then considered a very young age. But I did that mummy thing and moved into a different career which offers far better work/life balance but much less career progression. So, like so many things, it’s a balance and (arguably) a compromise.

While I was never in the running to run a FTSE 100 company, I am pretty sure that I could have reached the top within my specific profession within such a company. It might have been delayed a little by a wanker boss who hated me and caused a lot of problems, but I feel quite confident I could have got past that.

However, I made a very conscious decision NOT to continue on the career path I'd started on. After 15 years of working in the City, I came to realise that while I could go even further, I didn't want to. I didn't want to be on call 24/7 and where I'd be in the office for 60+ hours a week. I didn't want a life where I had to spend my days thinking and worrying about things that to the vast bulk of people just really aren't important. I didn't want to have to justify the behaviour of entitled people any more. I didn't want to be as "tough" as I needed to be.

I guess, arguably therefore, you could say that what stopped me was the culture and mindset of these sorts of organizations and to do those sorts of roles. And perhaps in a different culture I'd have carried on. But if there's one thing I can see from reading the newspapers today is that all of these organisations and all of these places still operate this way. Change is glacial.

Instead, I earn a decent living but have a much happier life. I'm home with and for my children. I am physically less stressed. I eat healthily, I exercise (somewhat) and I am, without a doubt, a kinder more considerate person than I would be if I'd stayed what I was doing.

I could have achieved a lot more. I have a good brain. I think there are 3 reasons why I haven't gone further in my career: lack of confidence (I prefer to be told what to do at work rather than being in a managerial position making big decisions), lack of ambition and a general lack of interest in working life. I've always prioritised my personal life over work and treated my job as just a way to pay the bills.

Yes, twice!

I got to as high as I could go by working really hard and sheer good luck.
I got to the top then had a baby, had to drop right down to the bottom level but worked my way back up.
Now about to go even higher, earn more than I’ve ever earned, less hours, fat less stress. Perfect job.
I have no degree.
I was below average in all academic subjects, struggled very much with anything, not very bright, not encouraged, no real female role models.
But knew with 100% clarity and drive the kind of life I wanted for myself and future family.
I set out and did it.
Im very very proud of my achievements.
Loved my jobs, happy comfortable life, exactly where I wanted to be.